1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and program for determining the ranking of network game players, and a recording medium which stores the program. The system includes a server and game machines which communicate with the server via a network, the server being programmed to determine the ranking of respective teams of game players in accordance with the players' game results sent from the game machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many computer-controlled game machines include a feature for ranking players based on their game results. Players who have gained high scores are invited to enter their names or nicknames at the end of the game so that their names or nicknames are listed with their scores in the ranking chart. The ranking feature appeals to players because it makes their techniques known to other players of the same game.
With the advanced network communication technology in recent years, a large number of people from across a country or from all over the world can participate in the same game and compete against each other, their game results being collected in a server run by a game manufacturer or the like via the network for ranking purposes. One problem with this system is that higher ranking positions of a popular game with many participants are always occupied by the same skilled players, and beginners can hardly get their scores and names listed in the ranking chart, because of which the less experienced are less interested in the ranking system.
Improvements have been proposed to address the issue; for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-233069 describes a system in which, while latest game results are recorded in a ranking chart irrespective of the scores, ranking data are basically deleted when they get old, except for those which are ranked above a preset level, or, ranking entries are deleted from the lowest position except for latest game results. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-135854 teaches grouping players in accordance with their skills and setting different levels of difficulty for each group, the players being ranked within respective groups.
With the ranking system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-233069, even players who have obtained low scores can get their results and names listed on the ranking chart, but only temporarily, and the problem that skilled players always occupy the ranking chart is not resolved. Another problem is that, if a player's latest score is far lower than others in the ranking, the significance of ranking would be lost, because the player cannot recognize at which level his skills actually are among all the players who have played the same game, which is initially the idea of ranking.
With the ranking system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-135854, if the number of grouped players increases to a large number, the same problem that higher positions in each group are occupied by the same players will arise. Another problem is that participants play games with different levels of difficulty set by the server in accordance with the players' skills, i.e., strictly speaking, the system is not a ranking system of players who have played the same game.